Faculty

Emily Apter

Silver Professor of French and Comparative Literature

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

Philosophizing in Languages, Political Theory, Translation theory and praxis sexuality and gender, critical theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, gender and ontology, new French philosophy, political fiction, French fiction and poetics, periodization critique, history and theory of Comparative Literature, critical pedagogies.

Ulrich Baer

Poetry; photography; literary theory; continental philosophy; visual culture; new media; trauma and testimony in all media in history, and culture; literature as a mode of knowing; globalization; environmentalism; texts and images of social justice

Ana María Dopico

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

Comparative studies of the Americas, theory and history of the novel, Cuban and Caribbean Culture, nationhood and imperialism, syncretism and visual culture, memory and popular culture, national poets, public intellectuals and cultural genealogies, U.S. Latino cultures, North-South studies/cultural politics of the global South, gender and narrative, psychoanalysis and social mythologies.

Jay Garcia

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

20th and 21st century U.S. literature; modern literature and literary theory, African American literary history, Black Atlantic theory, intellectual history; history and practice of American Studies; cultural criticism

Richard Sieburth

Cristina Vatulescu

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

Relationship of literature to other disciplines, arts, and media; aesthetics and politics, law, and policing; artistic and extra-artistic genres, in particular the novel, autobiography, and the police file/film; documentary/fiction/metafiction; archival art and theory; intermedia; literary and film theory and history; Russian and Romanian twentieth century culture; immigration and cultural exchange

Xudong Zhang

Professor of Comparative Literature & East Asian Studies; Director of China House

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

Xudong Zhang’s research interests include critical theory; modernism and modernity; theories of representation, narrative, and interpretation; political philosophy; aesthetics; and twentieth century Chinese literature and culture. Of his ongoing concerns are literary criticism and theory as poetics, socio-ontology, and historiography in one; identity and identity-formation in politico-philosophical and cultural-civilizational contexts; a theory of comparison and comparability; and methodological reconsiderations of area studies. Publishing in both English- and Chinese-speaking worlds, he is currently at work on manuscripts on Hegel’s aesthetics; Lu Xun; and the second volume of/sequel to his 2005/06 book, Cultural Politics in the Age of Globalization.

Ben Kafka

Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

"Gaslighting"; Analogocentrism, grammophonocentrism; The preconscious in psychoanalytic theory and technique; Wishful/magical thinking under late capitalism; The grand unified theory of unhappiness; The role of schisms, interpersonal conflict, fallings-out, and grudges in the formation of modern thought (socialism, feminism, psychoanalysis...)

Christopher Wood

Chair of German Department; Professor Department of German, Department of Comparative Literature

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

Temporalities of art: anachronism, archaism, typology, primitivisms; history of scholarship, esp. the disciplines of art history and archeology; folk art and folk literature; Märchen and Sagen; portraiture and especially “embedded” portraits (donors, votaries); votive objects and images, pilgrimages, relics; drawing and studio practice in the Renaissance; European art and the New World; art and replication technologies; magic and witchcraft in early modern Europe; art and the Protestant Reformation; iconoclasm; German art and culture in the 19th century; art and poetry of Romanticism.

Timothy Reiss

Professor Emeritus

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

Classical and Renaissance literature, philosophy, and history; the Renaissance and inter-atlantic cultural exchanges; 18th century literature, history and politics; history and theory of theatre; Caribbean culture and political theory.

Kristin Ross

Professor Emeritus

AREAS OF RESEARCH/INTEREST

French literature and culture of the 19th and 20th centuries; Francophone Caribbean literature; urban history, theory, and politics; literature, culture, and ideology; popular culture; History and Literature